Trouble
They came from the stars. That was what she had been told, not by magic, but by the machines. But there was nothing to remind them of those times. Times when there had been a gadget for everything. There were only guns and the powder to fire them, but that was normal.
She dreamed of days when water didn’t have to be carried indoors, or days when it wasn’t her duty to heat the house. Her brothers had it easy. They patrolled around their farm, looking for any sign of trouble. And everyone knew what trouble meant. If they slipped, if they fell asleep, it would get them. But trouble hadn’t been seen in ages. They were all killed now, or so her grandma whispered in the dead of night before falling asleep.
She looked out as the red moon rose over the prairie. She was feeling restless again. The family farm was all she knew. The farthest she had ever been was to the neighboring farms and the marketplace. That was all there was to it. She wanted to know the places the star-people built. Her grandmother told stories about glorious cities powered by the invisible. Not that she had ever seen them. Grannie’s father had told her the stories and so on.
If she could just find out the truth, maybe this all wouldn’t feel so suffocating. Maybe the trouble wouldn’t remain as a bogeyman, holding her to this farm and forcing her to marry one of the Lark brothers.
She pulled on her brother’s trousers. They were too big, but she had hemmed them shorter, and she tied her dead father’s belt around her waist to keep them up. The thick wool fabric felt coarse around her legs. She was so used to having a cotton petticoat to shield her skin from her woolen walking skirt. This was new. The rawness was good.
She dressed in a cotton shirt, a woolen jacket, and filled her backpack with stolen food jars and the bullets for the gun she had carried with her as long as she could remember.
The window to her room was slightly ajar. Grandmother had left it so. Usually, they slept in the same room, but her grandma was having her usual poker night with the neighborhood grannies who had come to visit. She slipped out and felt her stomach turn.
“This is good. There has been no sign of trouble in ages,” she whispered to herself. She was going to nib out, be away for a week or two, and then come back home full of stories. That was the plan.
She went to the barn and saddled her horse. The story went that the first people to come had a fondness for horses, and they brought them with them. Otherwise, the animals of the prairie were hostile, prickly, and armored against the trouble. Along with the horses, they brought cattle, chickens, ducks, pigs, and sheep with them, all now stockier than they used to be. They grew corn and yams. All of it gave them a relatively good life.
Her horse was a thing of beauty. It was brown with a little streak of white. She smoothed her hand over its muzzle. They had been together since he had been born. Both joined together.
She mounted it and planned to take the back route out of the farm. Her brothers would be on the other side, and when they noticed her and the dust cloud she raised against the starry sky, she was too far gone. But she never got that far. Something screeched in the night, something she had never heard. The horse reared up on its hind legs and knocked her down.
She jumped up, drawing her gun out. She left the horse in the barn and locked the door behind her. The dark house was now fully lit, and she heard people shouting. She heard her brother scream. She ran toward where they patrolled and saw the trouble. There were three of them. Their black skin gleamed in the light of the red moon. She lifted her gun and shot, hitting the leftmost.
It let out a screech. All her instincts told her to run inside the house and lock the doors behind her, but her brother was there, motionless on the ground, and her other brother was barely holding the trouble back.
She shot again and again, only to stop to fill up her gun. By that time, they had, together with her brother and the other men who had joined in, taken two out of the monsters that ruled the planet before they came. The third one was smaller and more agile. It dashed toward the fences and leaped in, landing in the middle of the farmyard. It let out a screech and sped toward her, looking straight at her with its eyeless face.
She felt herself fly backward as the monster’s claw clutched at her chest. She closed her eyes as she landed on her back, the impact knocking the wind out of her. She was sure she would die, but then the trouble collapsed over her. Something oozed out of it, burning her skin.
—
It is snowing here. The dark, lightless wet ground is now white and soft. It’s the first snow of the season, and I feel like my time has come. I made for winters and the dark months. I wish we could honor this time of year by slowing down, but our modern world doesn’t work like that. It should, though.
What I got today was a lyrical western quest written in the limited third person. I forgot the lyrical part as I got sucked into the story, trying to bring it to life. I wanted to write a western in space. The story is nothing new, but it was fun to write. I have never written along these lines before, so it was a good experiment.
Thank you for reading! Have an experimental day, and see you tomorrow ❤
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